New Dev Blog Report: November 2012

[A Lumberjack 32]

Thanks Rocket for giving us this long awaited update. I'm glad to hear that the DayZ development is going smoothly and that we will hopefully have the SA out by Christmas. If you need to delay, by all means go for it. I like it when developers (iD) go by the "when it's done" release date rather than a fixed date.

But I do have a question:

My main issue with the game is that it is heavy CPU intensive. Currently my dual-core athlon melts at the sight of a few zombies. Of course some servers are better than others but for me I average around 10-15 fps in cities due to the zombie AI. My question is, have you done any benchmarking with the new zombie code? How much of a performance increase (CPU side) should we expect?

Thanks Mr. Hall

Keep up the amazing work!

[rocket 16567]

...I have no problem with Steam, and I am a huge supporter of Chet's vision in gaming for the most part, however I can't help but get the impression that the development focus is on providing framework for goofy microtransactions...

What exactly do I need to do to demonstrate how much I don't like microtransactions?

Microtransactions?

Don't... tempt me Frodo!

I dare not [implement microtransactions]. Not even to keep [development] safe.

Understand, Frodo. I would use [microtransactions] from a desire to do good... But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.

[Erizid 56]

There are some Steam myths that I would like to dispel at this time.

Number #1: If Steam were to cease to exist as a company at ANY point. I can guarantee that *ALL* single player games would be completely unaffected. You would just run Steam in offline mode and everything would be normal except your friends wouldn't see you earning sweet achievements in real time.

Number #2: If Steam were to cease to exist as a company at ANY point. I can guarantee that *ALL* multi-player games would have workarounds and new servers developed *WITHIN 24 HOURS* by the internet community. If Steam and Valve were to have a nuclear bomb dropped on them and they vanished in the blink of an eye, Counter-strike and whatever else would still be playable after the fact.

Number #3: When you buy a Steam game, you are given a unique product key that is still linked to your account and stored on your computer. This product key functions identically to a printed product key you receive upon buying a hard copy of a game. If Steam were to cease to exist, that key would still be accessible and the game company *should* provide you access to the game in some other way if you needed to re-download it. This would be on a case by case basis for each developer however, so I can't guarantee this.

The exceptions to the above would most likely be Indie games. These games wouldn't even exist without Steam in the first place however. Once again though, even the single player Indie games would still be playable. Re-downloading them would be the only thing in question.

I also feel the need to point out, If they didn't release it on Steam, we would be lucky to see the game before December 2013, let alone within a year. There are always pros and cons. Denigrating into a pro-Steam, anti-Steam discussion is completely useless in reference to DayZ.

[ybm 111]

What exactly do I need to do to demonstrate how much I don't like microtransactions?

Microtransactions?

Don't... tempt me Frodo!

I dare not [implement microtransactions]. Not even to keep [development] safe.

Understand, Frodo. I would use [microtransactions] from a desire to do good... But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.

Don't waste your time with derps like that, keep developing!

[sniperdoc 251]

For the sake of the Steam discussion I've started a thread here: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/109460-discussion-regarding-digital-distribution-platforms/

For those genuinely interested in understanding what makes Steam, Origin or uPlay a bad choice for consumers, please visit and comment. Again, I also reiterate to keep things humane and lets not turn it into a "you whine too much" type discussion. People have opinions that makes them neither wrong or right, but invalidating someones opinions or views serves no purpose other than to grow your own e-peen.

[simasz 15]

What exactly do I need to do to demonstrate how much I don't like microtransactions?

Microtransactions?

Don't... tempt me Frodo!

I dare not [implement microtransactions]. Not even to keep [development] safe.

Understand, Frodo. I would use [microtransactions] from a desire to do good... But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.

Now this is the kind of developer that everybody should love!

[maleitch 14]

What exactly do I need to do to demonstrate how much I don't like microtransactions?

Microtransactions?

Don't... tempt me Frodo!

I dare not [implement microtransactions]. Not even to keep [development] safe.

Understand, Frodo. I would use [microtransactions] from a desire to do good... But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.

Rocket, not all of us sit with Reddit on Autorefresh or stalk your every spoken word with groupie-like obsession, so if you have a stated stance against microtransactions then I am more than happy to be ignorant in this case. Glad to hear it.

[rocket 16567]

Rocket, not all of us sit with Reddit on Autorefresh or stalk your every spoken word with groupie-like obsession, so if you have a stated stance against microtransactions then I am more than happy to be ignorant in this case. Glad to hear it.

True.

Indeed, I don't care for it in terms of providing a good incentive to make the game better because I believe businesses will naturally (as they should) grow towards their revenue stream. If you revenue is hats, then that is an area you will naturally grow towards. If your revenue is "we need to make this game more attractive so more people buy it", then you develop it some more until the point you get diminishing returns on that.

Anyway, I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a bit of LOTR humor, given the wave of embarrassing hobbit mania that is enveloping my home country right now.

[maleitch 14]

True.

Indeed, I don't care for it in terms of providing a good incentive to make the game better because I believe businesses will naturally (as they should) grow towards their revenue stream. If you revenue is hats, then that is an area you will naturally grow towards. If your revenue is "we need to make this game more attractive so more people buy it", then you develop it some more until the point you get diminishing returns on that.

Anyway, I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a bit of LOTR humor, given the wave of embarrassing hobbit mania that is enveloping my home country right now.

Totally agree...your success in this game is by sticking with the mindset you used in creating the mod to begin with. You are offering a real shift in gameplay mindset. A total departure from spoon fed, "no-consequences" gaming which people are obviously craving.

I trust you, and you are going to be wildly successful with this.

[Mos1ey 6301]

I don't think the issue is so much steam as that we are forcing people to use a mechanism to utilize the game. This is irritating for any consumer. I did NOT like having to register a windows live account just to play Red Faction: Whatever, and I had a great deal of trouble getting it working especially when offline. So I can understand this, the problem is:

To play DayZ you must use <insert digital store here>

Regardless of what digital store it is, if you aren't currently using that store it is going to be a pain in the arse. My hope here, is to demonstrate we didn't make this decision because we're lazy, we have shares in Steam, or I am on GabeN's Christmas Card list, we made the decision because it best supports our development pipeline and allows us to focus on making the game. Fact of the matter is, from my perspective, my contacts at Steam pretty much have said "tell us what you need to make this game" and we said "this, this and this". And here they are. No marketing rubbish, product store placements, discussions of exclusivity.

Ah, okay. That I can sympathise with, I hate Games For Windows Live and Rockstar Social Club with a passion...

Steam's actually a decent piece of software though. I guess we'll be able to join our Steam friend's games through our friends lists and stuff, no?

[grndctrl 28]

Big big fan of Steam ,thank you for informing us. I know many companies that would keep the crying in the dark and not say a word on ANY topics that would be a direct answer. Especialy during development.

Edited November 30, 2012 by Corecomander

[nmv06 8]

From a post about the game development stage to arguing about why the devs are using steam.

Personally, i have nothing against steam, and would buy the game in which ever way it is released.

To those who are concerned about buying the game on steam and about their rights as a buyer, As Erizid posted earlier, you can always copy your cd key from steam, and later if the game is launched in another manner, you can still use the same cd key to play the game.

I think this topic should stop, because it's going nowhere fast.

Edited November 30, 2012 by nmv06

[hulkingunicorn 20]

This could be achieved with LAN and I don't know any MP games without LAN option.[...]

How about Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2? Primal Carnage? Call of Duty: Black Ops 2?

[...]My main issue with the game is that it is heavy CPU intensive. Currently my dual-core athlon melts at the sight of a few zombies. Of course some servers are better than others but for me I average around 10-15 fps in cities due to the zombie AI. [...]

With the DayZ mod the zombies exist locally on the client that spawns them (if you're chased by zombies and you're the only player nearby, you can disconnect and rejoin to yet again see 'safe' surroundings) and your computer coordinates them.

I'd expect the zombies to put a lot less strain on your CPU in the standalone (with the architecture changes outlined in the blog post, the server will be controlling them).

[tsandrey 379]

I don't have a problem with Steam, but VAC is just bad...

[siew 53]

will clothes have attributes like agility, temperatur isolation (for not gettin too cold), extra pockets for stuff and so on?

also what about helmets and kevlar vests?

in the future of course ;)

that would be amazing

Edited November 30, 2012 by siew

[powajoj 6]

Question for rocket:

Could you explain the less clunky controls? Does that mean it will be more arcadey ? (like someone said earlier, 360 noscope)

requoted this. we need some info on this less clunky controls.

[newtee2 9]

I do not know if this question has been answered or not:

In the mod it is easy for one to find out if a player is nearby by looking to see if there are zombies in the distance. I do not know if this breaks the game for others, but it breaks it for me a little bit. How will you address this?

[Bororm 1156]

requoted this. we need some info on this less clunky controls.

Yes please, very curious about this. If you could please elaborate on how you intend to maintain that current feeling of tension that results from the clunkiness while cleaning up the controls/inventory system.

[Takas 91]

rocket, what about combat? Any changes? Will I be able to shove advancing Zombies back, push them to the ground, and shit like this?

[jblackrupert 308]

Just found out Steam is going to allow Games to be installed on multiple drives.

The BETA client has it but only for a few games.

http://steamcommunit...66056837737711/

Amazing... only took 9 freaking years... maybe in 9 more years offline mode will work.

There's also this app for moving Steam games to another drive

http://www.traynier.com/software/steammover

It uses the junction system suggested here but in a dummy proof app.

Edited November 30, 2012 by jblackrupert

[daze23 549]

Just found out Steam is going to allow Games to be installed on multiple drives.

The BETA client has it but only for a few games.

Amazing... only took 9 freaking years... maybe in 9 more years offline mode will work.

wow, that's great news :thumbsup:

[R.J. 70]

If people think VAC is the second coming to combat cheating and have nothing to worry about, think again. Counter Strike, using VAC, is plauged with cheating and the game is over 8 years old!

I think many of us have been victims of scripting at one point or another, but I sincerely hope the game will implement something to run in conjunction with VAC or at least allow a effective means to deal with it. So far, the only real way of doing anything is to wade through pages of log files or get lucky enough to catch them red handed.

Punkbuster isn't foolproof either, but with a means to investigate a players ID history against a database is such a invaluable tool to see if prior global bans exist on other accounts held by the same player. Also, the real time streaming admin constantly monitors the server for players who have global bans and effectively shuts the door before they can even join. As of right now, whitelisting a player is just a leap of faith with no way to truly background check anyone. Perhaps a collaboration with Pbbans?

Just sayin'

[McTwitchy 6]

I do not know if this question has been answered or not:

In the mod it is easy for one to find out if a player is nearby by looking to see if there are zombies in the distance. I do not know if this breaks the game for others, but it breaks it for me a little bit. How will you address this?

By pushing the game to all the logic being made on the server and not the cliento,I'd assume zombies will exist without a player's presense respectively. Of course the scope of this would depend on the server hardware. You don't want your ping to suffer from zombies 100k from you. Maybe they'll have static zombies that will "awaken" whenever passed or alerted by a live being..this in my thought process would definately take off some of the pressure on the server.

Dude the way Rocket is pushing this beast, it's going to revolutionize the game. So many possibilities to expound on.

Edited December 1, 2012 by McTwitchy

[$able 257]

from what i have read people are not "getting their knickers in a twist about using VAC", the issue is steam itself from what i read and my personal POV, i dont buy games that require steam as i do not wish to be locked into a service that could be gone tomorrow and i do not apreciate giving up my basic consumer rights.

i would like to correct one misconception you seem to have, people do not lose their steam account if caught using cheats, only the use of the games using the engine they cheated in, nothing changes compared to now, i read that people who get banned by the current anti-cheat used by dayz can just buy another CD key, people that cheat in steam can make a new account and repurchase the game, also because VAC does not ban instantly a cheater can keep griefing for "days or weeks", to quote online sources, before VAC actually kicks in, this to me seems like a considerable downgrade compared to the current situation where if someone is caught by the dayz anti-cheat they are instantly banned.

Thanks for posting some facts! :thumbsup:

If people think VAC is the second coming to combat cheating and have nothing to worry about, think again. Counter Strike, using VAC, is plauged with cheating and the game is over 8 years old!

I think many of us have been victims of scripting at one point or another, but I sincerely hope the game will implement something to run in conjunction with VAC or at least allow a effective means to deal with it. So far, the only real way of doing anything is to wade through pages of log files or get lucky enough to catch them red handed.

Punkbuster isn't foolproof either, but with a means to investigate a players ID history against a database is such a invaluable tool to see if prior global bans exist on other accounts held by the same player. Also, the real time streaming admin constantly monitors the server for players who have global bans and effectively shuts the door before they can even join. As of right now, whitelisting a player is just a leap of faith with no way to truly background check anyone. Perhaps a collaboration with Pbbans?

Just sayin'

You didn't mention BE. May I ask why? ;)

Edited December 1, 2012 by Sable

[finkone 320]

Rocket/Dev team

6. Character progression: Any thoughts on character progression? Again I'm sorry if this has already been covered. I just know if I was rucking around at 4mph for a few months and I'm well fed..I'll be able to up my speed/distance/weight. If I'm not well fed.. well...it'll slow me down, I'll get the shakes, dehydrated, atrophy..lots of bad bad things.

Lastly I just want to say thank you guys for bringing this game to the community.

Question 6 - I'm going to start with a direct requote of this, because I completely disagree with it. Not the over all idea of the statement - but because I'm in the Army, and I know rucking.

"6. Character progression: Any thoughts on character progression? Again I'm sorry if this has already been covered. I just know if I was rucking around at 4mph for a few months and I'm well fed..I'll be able to up my speed/distance/weight. If I'm not well fed.. well...it'll slow me down, I'll get the shakes, dehydrated, atrophy..lots of bad bad things."

Continued stressful rucks such as what we put our character through - each time I play, in general I'll end up moving 10 clicks or so - if I did this for several months, even with good broken in boots, and I was well fed, and was well slept, you would still tear your body down, your feet down, your joints. You wouldn't see stamina improvement from this type of thing. ;) I know.

To often me and my army buddies are playing... and (forum mods forgive the language) we can't help but say things such as this to each other over coms...

"Man - Bro, I can hear you breathin realllllll heavy with that 240B - I bet your sucking a bid ol' dick."

"Wow, it sure would be nice to be running this fast up hill with a freakin' car engine in my backpack man."

"Dude - why can't I fill my fkin' water up with rain water?" (Sorry - had to throw that one in there, not really related)

Google a medium ALICE pack on google, head out and start out slow - do you a 4 miler, 6 miler, 8 miler, then a 12 miler with at least 45LBs. Once you attempt you're 12 miler - time it. If you can't complete it in 2 hours and 30 mins ish time - your character in DayZ would already SMOKE the hell outta you IRL. Now once you wake up the next day - tell me how your legs feel, lemme know if your feet managed to stay dry and not rub, and lastly tell me that you've thinked you improved your over all physical ability.

The one thing I did like about ACE/ACRE is the weight system of the rucks and the ability to heat-cat.

I'm not trying to bash you at all for your post - I tried to be helpful, but just wanted to state that I fully disagree with any type of "my characters been alive longer, and thus is better." mentality to the game. If anything he should be able to catch sickness easier for having to live under harsh living conditions for a prolonged period of time.

Hope I was helpful.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Reaper 3